As panicked Americans removed toilet paper and food from supermarkets, last spring, supermarket employees were recognized as the most indispensable frontline workers in the pandemic.
A year later, most of these workers are waiting for the turn to receive the COVID-19 vaccines, without much clarity about when this might happen.
A decentralized vaccine campaign has resulted in a patchwork of policies that differ from state to state, and even from municipality to municipality in some areas, resulting in an inconsistent distribution to low-paid essential workers who are exposed to hundreds of customers every year. days.
“Apparently, we are not frontline employees when it comes to getting the vaccine. That was quite shocking, ”said Dawn Hand, who works at a Kroger supermarket in Houston, where she said that three of her co-workers were infected with the virus last week. She watches other people being vaccinated in the store’s pharmacy, not knowing when it will be her turn.
Texas is among several states that have decided to leave the grocery store and other essential workers out of the second phase of their vaccination effort, prioritizing adults over 65 and people with chronic medical conditions.
Focusing on the elderly is an approach that many epidemiologists consider the most ethical and efficient, as it will help reduce deaths and hospitalizations more quickly. People over 65 are responsible for 80% of deaths in the country, according to the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control.
“Our primary goals with vaccines should be to reduce deaths and hospitalizations,” said William Moss, executive director of the International Vaccine Center at the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health. “To do this, we need to start vaccinating those most at risk.”
But many grocery workers were surprised and discouraged to find that they were left out of such policies, in part because a CDC panel raised their expectations by recommending the second phase of the vaccine’s launch – 1B – including groceries and other essential employees.
Even when grocery workers are prioritized, they still face long waits. New York opened vaccines for grocery workers in early January, along with other key employees and anyone aged 65 and over. But the limited supply makes it difficult to make an appointment, especially for workers who do not have large companies or unions to defend them.
Edward Lara had to close his small grocery store – known as a bodega – in the Bronx for 40 days when he and his employees contracted the virus last spring. He tried for weeks to get a vaccine appointment and finally found that he could register via the website of a network of healthcare providers, who will notify him when a vacancy opens.
Lara’s father-in-law died of the virus in March. Her mother-in-law died in November. Last week, a friend who runs his bodega’s insurance policy also died. And a cousin in New Jersey caught the virus a second time, making him afraid that it might happen to him.
“Nothing to be done. Cross your fingers and hope God protects me,” said Lara after signing up for the waiting list.
Only 13 states are allowing grocery workers to apply for vaccines, according to the United Food and Commercial Workers union, which represents 1.3 million food workers, slaughterhouses and other frontline workers in the United States.
Some states are still working at an early stage that prioritizes health workers and nursing home residents. Many states have divided the second phase into levels that put grocery workers at lower levels than others, including people aged 65 and over, teachers and first responders. Eleven states do not have a clear plan to prioritize food workers, according to a survey by United 4 Respect, a group of workers who defend workers at Walmart, Amazon and other major retailers.
At MOM’s Organic Market, a supermarket chain with 21 stores in the Mid-Atlantic region, culture director Jon Croft initially thought that the company’s 1,500 employees would be vaccinated by the end of January. He now thinks it will be more like March or April. The company was only able to pre-register workers from two stores in Maryland and two in Virginia.
“People think they deserve the opportunity to be vaccinated for being on the front lines,” said Croft. “Politicians and health departments have been praising grocery workers, but now they are silent.”
Major food retailers say they are doing their part to vaccinate their employees. Kroger, the nation’s largest supermarket chain, said it has been vaccinating employees in Illinois since they became eligible, but grocery workers are still not eligible in most jurisdictions in which the company operates. Target and Walmart also said they will offer vaccines to their employees in their own pharmacies as soon as they are eligible.
Kroger, Trader Joe’s, Target and the online delivery service Instacart offered bonuses or extra paid time off for workers who receive the vaccine.
When the Lidl supermarket chain received word from Suffolk County, Long Island, that it would be named for its local workers, it immediately contacted those who knew they were most at risk. So far, more than 100 employees in Suffolk County have been vaccinated.
Joseph Lupo, a Lidl supervisor who fell ill with the virus in March, is one of them.
“I never want to get COVID again, or see someone else do it,” said Lupo, 59.
But for many grocery workers, the perception that they will not be eligible anytime soon increases the feeling that they are expendable. They waged an almost lost battle for risk payment, which a handful of companies offered in the spring, but ended despite the virus’s multiple resurgences.
A year after the pandemic began, some buyers still refuse to wear masks and managers often do not force them to follow the rules.
“There are people who come in wearing a half mask or take it off as soon as they walk through the door,” said Drew Board, who earns $ 13.50 an hour handling food delivery orders at a Walmart in Albemarle, North Carolina. “I politely ask them to pull back up and they pull, and then withdraw when they leave.”
Francisco Marte, president of the Bodega and Small Business Association of New York, said he tells his own workers not to risk their lives by confronting buyers who don’t wear masks. In August, a furious customer cut thousands of dollars worth of merchandise at a winery in the Bronx after being asked to wear a mask.
“It must be police work,” said Mars, whose organization distributed 150,000 free masks in the spring, when they were rare. “I tell the employees: keep your distance and wear a mask, but don’t take any chances, because we are the ones who lose.”
Mars said he has been pressuring local authorities to reserve vaccine appointments for bodega workers, many of whom are unaware that they are eligible. He hopes that the recent opening of a major vaccination post at Yankee Stadium will make access easier.
The virus, however, continues its march in supermarkets.
In the past two months, 137 outbreaks of COVID-19 have occurred in supermarkets in Southern California and 500 workers in Houston supermarkets have been infected, according to the UFCW. The union knows 124 grocery workers who have died since the pandemic began.
Debbie Whipple, scanning manager at a Kroger in Fayetteville, Georgia, said her union, UFWC Local 1996, does not expect Georgia to open vaccines for grocery workers before April.
“We have to be here, as well as a fireman and a policeman, because people need food,” said Whipple, who described the frustration of seeing customers routinely barefoot and refusing offers of free masks. “We should get the vaccine.”
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Associated Press writer Anita Snow of Phoenix contributed to this report.